“Get out, Catriona. We’re done.”
Swallowing my emotions, I made it as far as the entranceway before my legs gave out. I gripped the handrail of the impressive staircase, my fast reactions the only thing preventing me from tumbling to the floor, my breathing staccato as I tried to gulp in air. I hated conflict. Detested it. And going up against Garen Gauthier, a man who excelled in divergent situations had made me feel sick.
You’ve done the right thing.
I’d need that to become my mantra over the coming days and weeks while I rebuilt my fractured heart.
31
Garen
I jammed a finger against the intercom and barked, “James, get in here.”
Within seconds, my executive assistant strode into my office, trusty iPad in hand, and a quirk to his eyebrow that signaled an upcoming query.
“What?” I snapped.
He set the iPad on my desk and—uninvited—took a seat across from me. I gave him a flat stare but allowed the transgression to pass without comment.
“Ever since you returned from Switzerland on Monday, you’ve been like a grizzly with a hangover. It’s not my place to interfere, but—”
“No, it’s not,” I interrupted. “And I arrived back from Switzerland on Saturday.”
“Fine, Saturday then,” he parroted with a sigh. “Clearly that detail is important to you.”
I canted my head to one side. “Careful, James.”
He threw his hands in the air. “Okay, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. But, Garen, something is very wrong. All I’m saying is that if you want to talk, I’m happy to listen.”
“I don’t,” I bit out, tossing a printed-out email across the desk. “Have you seen this?”
He gave it a cursory glance, then nodded, his lips pursed in that way he did when I’d hurt his feelings. “That’s why it’s in your ‘for action’ folder.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Sarcasm reduces the value of your annual bonus.” The comment was my way of apologizing, my tone holding a teasing note. James’ lips didn’t even twitch.
“I’d give up every cent if you’d talk to me.”
I let out a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m fine.”
I’m not fine.
In fact, I doubted fine was a word that I could ever use to describe my feelings again.
I missed Catriona, desperately.
Her lopsided smile, those emerald-green eyes that saw the good in me when I doubted its existence, the tinkling of her laugh, the way she rubbed the space between her eyebrows when deep in thought. How she nibbled her lip as she sat with her feet up in my garden room, reading. I missed the feel of her walls closing around me when I pushed inside her, the softness of her tongue as she licked up and down my shaft.
I just fucking missed her.
James expelled a frustrated huff. “Have it your way. I’m going nowhere.”
“Don’t bank on it,” I muttered.
He laughed. “Darling, you couldn’t cope without me, and you know it.” He pointed his chin at the email. “Want me to deal with that?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got it.”
“Okay.” He rose from the chair and picked up his tablet. “And please call Oliver. He called again yesterday and twice the day before.”
I rubbed my forehead, knowing I couldn’t put off my best friend for much longer. He had a sixth sense when it came to me, and ever since I’d spouted all those lies about Catriona at last week’s video conference, he’d constantly called as I’d expected. So far, I’d managed to avoid him.
“Garen?”
I lifted my head and gave a curt nod. “Will do.”
He left me alone. I glanced up at the clock on the wall. Two p.m. That meant it was five p.m. in New York. I stroked my chin. Too early for a scotch?
Nope.
Striding over to the corner of my office where I kept a small array of drinks, I poured two fingers into a cut-crystal glass and went over to the couch. Instead of sitting, I stood by the window and stared at the city landscape. Gray clouds rolled in, and a few spots of rain splattered the windowpane. On the street below, umbrellas appeared, pedestrians upping their pace to escape the oncoming downpour.
Five days had passed since I’d flown back from Switzerland. Six days since I’d last seen Catriona and said those awful things to her. I hadn’t meant one word. Not a single one. Yet she’d swallowed each and every malicious syllable.
At the back of my mind, a gnawing feeling that I was missing something wouldn’t let up. Why had she gone from putty in my hands to breaking things off in only two days? On the journey home from Walther’s charity bash on Wednesday, she’d melted every time I laid a hand on her or looked at her with hungry eyes. Then two days later, she’s breaking it off, citing Aiden as an excuse. Which was bullshit. The whole time we were in Switzerland, she spent the majority of it with Aiden and her grandmother. We’d kept our meet-ups to the evening, which had allowed me to work during the day, and that suited me fine.
The answer hit me like an arrow through the heart.
No.
She couldn’t have.
It wasn’t possible.
But if it were possible, that would explain everything.
I snatched up my phone and called Lia. Despite the late hour in Switzerland, she answered within a few seconds.
“Lia, sorry to call so late. I need a favor.”
“What is it?” she answered. “Do you need me to get Catriona?”
As if I’d been punched in the stomach, I curved in on myself. The mere mention of her name was like a hot knife to the gut.
“No. But I do need two of you for this. Can you wake Raphael and get him to come up to the house? I need both of you to go to my office.”
Raphael was my gardener and, like Lia, he lived on-site in a small house in the grounds.
“Of course.”
The sound of bedsheets rustling reached me.
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes,” I said. She’d need that long to get in touch with Raphael and have him make the short walk up to the main house.
I paced while I waited. If my experiment proved what I feared, that would explain Catriona’s strange turnaround, so out of character and diametrically opposed to her actions. Once I’d waited the allotted amount of time, I pressed redial.
“Okay, we’re in your office. I have Raphael with me.”
“Great,” I said. “Lia, I want you to stand outside and close the door. Ask Raphael to talk, and you let me know if you can hear him.”
“What do you want him to say?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Anything. He can read from a book on the shelves. It doesn’t matter.” I managed to keep the frustration out of my voice. I’d woken the woman up and asked her to do something that probably sounded strange. Couldn’t blame her for asking questions.
“Hold on.”
The sound of her giving him instructions came over the line, and then I heard a definite click which must be Lia leaving my office.
“I’m standing outside,” she said.
“Great. Now tell me if you can hear him by simply standing there or whether you have to press your ear against the door.”
“No need for an ear,” she said, giggling. “I can hear him loud and clear.”
My heart plunged to my feet.
Fuck.
Catriona must have heard every lying word spilling from my lips.
Fucking Sebastian and his inane delving into my goddamn private life. If he’d kept his mouth shut, none of this would have happened. Next time I saw him, I’d ram my fist into his throat.
It isn’t Sebastian’s fault, dickhead. It’s yours.
“Thanks, Lia,” I said despondently. “Tell Raphael thanks, too. Go to bed. Oh, and don’t mention any of this to Catriona, please.”
“As you wish,” she said.
I hung up and sank into the plush cream leather sofa, my head in my hands.
It did
n’t matter how Catriona had heard what I’d told the ROGUES board. The fact remained she’d never believe it was all a lie, a way of saving face because I was a fucking idiot who needed to grow the hell up and admit to my friends that I’d met someone that I actually liked being around. Instead, when Sebastian had teased me over my smitten state, rather than smile and agree, I’d acted like a stupid teenager denying his first crush in front of his school friends.
For the first time in my life, I couldn’t figure a way out of the dreadful mess I’d created.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I called Oliver.
He answered like a man who’d been expecting my call. Fast.
“Fuck me, he lives.”
“You saw me last Friday,” I said.
“Oh yeah. So I did.” His voice held a heavy dose of sarcasm. “And since then, I’ve called you several fucking times, and you’ve either let my call go to voicemail or you’ve blackmailed James into doing your dirty work. What I want to know is why?”
“I haven’t blackmailed James,” I said. “He’s paid to protect me.”
“Yeah, and his talents are usually put to use placating your latest conquest with an arm around the shoulder and a gift from Tiffany’s after you’ve gotten bored with her, not finding excuses for why you’re ignoring calls from me.”
“I’ve been busy,” I muttered. “How’s Harlow and Annie?”
Asking about his girlfriend and eight-year-old daughter, the absolute apple of his eye, usually turned him to mush and allowed me to control the conversation. Not this time.
“They’re fine, and you’re a liar.”
“Fucking charming,” I bit out. “And what is it you think I’ve lied about?”
“I know you lied about this girl you were seen in Switzerland with. I get why you clammed up when Sebastian behaved like a dick, but I know you, Garen. I saw it in your eyes. There’s something different about this girl, and the fact you’ve avoided speaking to me since proves it.” He took a breath. “Do you like her?”
“It doesn’t matter whether I do or I don’t. It’s irrelevant.”
“Why?”
“Because she dumped me.”
I winced and grabbed a fistful of my shirt as if that would stop the cramping in my chest. Air whistled through Oliver’s teeth, and silence hung between us.
“Why?” he eventually asked. “What did you do?”
“How come you think I did anything?” I responded like an innocent man when I was anything but.
“Garen, I love you like a brother, but when it comes to relationships, you suck. It’s a matter of deduction that I’d lay odds on any breakup being caused by you.”
“She heard me,” I said, scratching my cheek and blowing out a deep sigh. “She heard the bullshit lies I told you all last Friday. And to make matters worse, when she broke it off, I said some pretty nasty things that guaranteed she’ll never speak to me again.”
“Oh, buddy…”
“Don’t,” I said, despondency weighing heavily on my shoulders and curving my spine. “What should I do?”
“When you say nasty, how nasty?”
I closed my eyes, the vitriol I’d spewed seeping into the forefront of my mind. “Brutal.”
“Shit. Okay…” A pause, then, “Here’s what I would do. Send her a letter—it’s more personal than an email—along with a bouquet of flowers and apologize. Just that. Don’t ask her to take you back, don’t say you want to see her. Offer up a simple apology and make sure it’s from the heart.”
“And then?”
“And then you wait.”
“For what?”
“For her reply.”
I swirled the glass of scotch, then took a sip, the burn warming my chilled insides. “And what if that never comes?”
Oliver’s resigned sigh filled me with despair. “Then there’s your answer.”
I knocked back the rest of the liquor. “That’s it? You wouldn’t fight for her?”
“I didn’t say that. You’d have an uphill battle on your hands, that’s all. It’s up to you whether you want to scale that mountain only to have her push you off when you reach the summit and watch with glee as you plunge to your death.”
“Nice analogy,” I muttered, rubbing the ache in the back of my neck.
“Thanks. I thought so.”
I smiled despite my dark mood. “I’ll give it a try.” What else could I do other than sit here bemoaning what might have been?
“Good luck. For what it’s worth, I really hope it works out for you, man.”
“You and me both,” I stated.
As soon as I cut the call, I stepped over to my desk. Writing letters wasn’t a regular activity, but on occasion, I sent one to my mother. She was an old-fashioned kind who liked to keep written correspondence in a tattered cardboard box that she’d had ever since I could remember. She kept all kinds of shit in there, from my first school picture to my first tooth, to the cap I’d worn when I graduated college.
I retrieved a sheet of thick, cream paper from the small stack in the second drawer of my desk, and a matching envelope. Addressing it to Catriona at my Swiss home, I stared at the blank page for a good few minutes while I tried to rearrange the jumble of words in my head into something that would make sense and demonstrate not only my heartfelt sorrow at what I’d done, but how much I missed her and sought her forgiveness.
Eventually, I picked up my pen and began to write. By the time I’d finished, I’d used two more sheets of paper, and as I reread what I’d written, I thought it clearly showed how much I regretted my behavior.
Feeling a lightness I hadn’t in days, I dropped the letter on James’ desk and instructed him to send it to Switzerland along with an enormous bouquet of burgundy roses and white tulips. I researched the flowers. Burgundy roses represented unconscious beauty which fitted Catriona perfectly, and white tulips, in some quarters, symbolized an apology.
A week passed by without a word from Catriona. I tried not to lose hope, but when James entered my office holding a large box that, when I opened it was filled with dead petals off the roses and tulips, their once vibrant soft leaves a crumpled mess, and my letter torn in two, I had my answer.
There would be no forgiveness, no belief in my admittance that what she’d overheard was a lie. No retraction of the bitter and merciless things I’d said.
It had taken me twenty-nine years, but I’d finally found a woman I wanted.
And I’d ruined it.
32
Catriona
“Aiden is responding beautifully to the treatment,” Dr. Faussman said, the edges of his hands resting on his desk as he leaned forward to discuss my brother’s progress.
Almost three months had passed since we’d arrived in Switzerland, and Garen had kept his word, the payments for Aiden’s treatment arriving regular as clockwork. Since his pitiful attempt at an apology arrived ten days after I’d broken things off and I’d responded with a clear “Screw. You”, I hadn’t heard from him, and I didn’t expect to. I hadn’t even read the damned letter. I had no interest in anything the man had to say after the way he’d behaved.
These days, at least I didn’t think about him every hour. Sometimes I went an entire day without his handsome face creeping into my mind and making me long for him so badly, I could barely stand from the pain in my chest.
Grams had drilled into me with her constant questioning, trying to understand what had happened, but when I remained tight-lipped and said nothing more than we’d decided to call it a day, she’d relented and had switched to mother hen mode instead, cooking up a storm and trying to force-feed me the myriad baked goods that appeared each afternoon. How Lia put up with Grams taking over her kitchen was a mystery to me. Then again, the two of them had become fast friends despite the eighteen-year age gap.
“We should be able to move on to the next phase of our plan.”
I jerked back to the present from the dark corners of my mind
and mustered a bright smile. “That’s really great news, Doctor. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for Aiden and continue to do.”
“It’s our pleasure,” he said. “He’s a joy to be around, always so positive in his outlook. It’s one of the criteria for success, you know. Positivity. That’s why he’s only had to stay in for three weeks for this portion of this treatment. For most patients it is at least four weeks. He’s a trooper.”
I smiled at his compliment. “That he is. When do you think he’ll be able to return home to Canada and continue his treatment remotely?”
I wasn’t in a rush to be in the same city as Garen, but equally, living in his home in Switzerland had grown torturous, especially as in every corner there seemed to be a memory I wanted to expunge. I couldn’t bear to go up onto the roof terrace where Garen and I shared our first kiss, and I was grateful that his suite of rooms were at the opposite end of the house and I could avoid them. Every part of me ached for him. Day and night. There was no respite from the agony of being apart, especially knowing we’d never be together again.
Dr. Faussman twisted his lips to one side, considering. “Hmm. Maybe in another three to four weeks. I want to keep an eye on his transition back to a twice-weekly treatment program and continue to run regular tests until I’m sure the oral medication is enough to eradicate the last vestiges of the disease and push him into remission.”
“I understand.” I rose from the chair and leaned forward to shake his hand. “Thank you once again.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll see you on Thursday as normal.”
I left his office and returned to Aiden’s room to take him back to Garen’s place. I couldn’t call it home. It wasn’t my home. It was his. And I couldn’t wait to leave.
Grams was sitting beside Aiden’s bed, clacking her knitting needles as usual while Aiden sat on the edge, anxious to leave the confines of the hospital where he’d resided for the last twenty-two days. The first couple of months they’d treated him as an out-patient, but the past three weeks, they’d intensified the therapy which meant he’d had to stay as an in-patient where the nurses and doctors could keep a close eye on his progress.
Entrapped: A Billionaire Romance (The ROGUES Series Book 3) Page 18
